Jpenn
Registered
Having just re-read BubbleBlocker's review of the Carib Dancer I'm hesitant to write my own trip review because I feel so guilty for having experienced a completely opposite trip. In fact, after reading her review, I was terrified for my husband and myself, as our first liveaboard was booked on the Carib Dancer barely a month later. I'm not writing this review to try to negate anyone's experience; however, I felt that I had to write about our own experience.
Thanks to the review, we were prepared to fend for ourselves at the airport. We had no problem getting a cab, and the driver took us right to the dock - I was skeptical as he kept asking if we were going to the Yoga Retreat! We made it to the boat around 1 pm, approximately 3 hours prior to boarding. Unsure of what to do for the afternoon, lugging our gear, etc, we wandered up to the boat happened to meet Ernie, the engineer. We chatted with him for a few minutes and he was nice enough to help us get our bags on board and send us in the direction of food and refreshment.
We made it back by 4pm and were introduced to the rest of the crew and the guests. We were extremely lucky to have the amazing crew of Captain Dennis, Engineer Ernie, Instructors Dave and Greg, and the extremely talented Chef Shea
Having never been on a liveaboard, my husband and I figured we would either love or hate the experience - we LOVED it! If the travel dates weren't so restricted (Saturday-Saturday) I would insist we dive liveaboards always! Really, the only aspect we were worried about was spending a week trapped on a boat with 10+ people we didn't like. We were truly blessed with our dive-mates! What wonderful personalities, we enjoyed spending time with everyone aboard, and being fairly new divers learned something valuable from each person.
I'm happy to report the nitrox was working on this charter. My husband and I weren't nitrox certified prior to this trip and had arranged through the travel specialist to take the course on-board. Dave was our instructor, and it was a pleasure to take the course with him.
We stayed in Cabin 2, which by my calculation (judging by other cabin doors left open) is the smallest of the guest cabins. My husband is 6'1" and well over 200lbs and it was challenging to be in the cabin at the same time! Luckily, other than sleeping there was no need to spend any time in there I am ashamed to say I was a bit shocked at the bathroom setup... I was expecting small, but not a toilet in the shower Luckily (again!) we did the majority of our showering on the main deck after diving. In fact, we used our shower on our arrival day to wash away the airport grime, and only used it again before leaving. The deck showers were nice and hot with room to spare! I found the cabin shower to be slightly claustrophobic and uncomfortably cool. Our bed was always made after breakfast, with sweets and mini candy bars on the pillow - perfect for our sweet tooth (teeth?)! The AC was cold and very powerful! I understand why they need to keep the temperature so cool, but a little control in the cabin would have been nice. Our vent wasn't even adjustable, so the first night it felt like we were tenting in the early spring in Canada! My nose froze and even my husband complained of being too cool, which he NEVER does. We managed to solve the air flow problem by taking the "do not disturb" door hanger and sliding it behind the vents. TA DA problem solved - adjustable AC. We did have a slight plumbing issue our first 2 days. We own an RV so we understand the need to be careful with what we put in the toilet, but it didn't seem to matter what we did, our toilet kept plugging. On the second day my husband refused to use our toilet (it's pretty embarrassing to have to keep asking to have your toilet unplugged), but even without use it was filling with water. I told this to the engineer, and he and Greg went down for quite sometime and whatever they did with the plumbing they managed to fix the problem - thank you guys!!!
The food on this charter was amazing! We had made to order breakfasts before our first dive and included things like waffles, chocolate chip pancakes, corned beef hash (which I've never had before, but really enjoyed!), all types of breakfast meats and eggs. After our morning dive we enjoyed warm, fresh from the oven cookies and muffins, usually served on the deck by Shea (seriously made my morning on several occasions). Lunch was an assortment of goodies - homemade soups and sandwiches, grilled hot dogs and hamburgers on the sun deck, pasta salads, etc. Our afternoon snack varied from chicken satay to homemade dips, hummus, etc. Dinner was always exciting (can you tell I love food?) We had chicken and ribs our first night and my husband was in love! We had grilled steaks, fish, pork tenderloin, and Shea's amazing take on Thanksgiving dinner (Shea, if you're reading this, please message me with the bread pudding recipe!!) The desserts after dinner were always homemade, creative, and delicious! My favorite treat on the charter was the "adult" hot chocolate, which was homemade with milk and a splash of Irish cream - thanks Greg There was also always a jar of Oreos to snack on any time. One of the instructors, Dave, was training to be Shea's relief chef, and I'm happy to report that he did an awesome job in the kitchen! Honestly, even if the trip had gone badly, I think I might go back for Chef Shea's food... he likens it to his own 14 person restaurant, and he does an amazing job with it - 5 stars all the way!!!
As far as the diving experience, we really enjoyed the liveaboard - set up your gear once the entire trip, what a novel idea! The hot showers on the deck were a treat, and the dry towel wrapped around your shoulders really was above and beyond what we expected. We enjoyed diving with all of the crew and the other guests - this was really our first experience being let loose, and what an experience! Our first dive we ended up quite a ways from the boat and ended up being picked up small inflatable boat. After that, we were more careful about our navigation! Our diving experience is limited to the coast of the Mayan Riviera, Cozumel, and Sicily, so I probably can't give a very comprehensive review of the conditions, but I will say that I really enjoyed the 80+ degree water! I definitely didn't think the diving was as good as Cozumel, but we saw some wonderful, new sea life and got to experience the reef sharks. Since the majority of our diving has been drift, it was neat to experience things like no current, and also the tides going in and out. The wreck and the Blue Hole were my 2 favorite dive sites. I was completely in awe with the friendly groupers at the wreck - one of our fellow divers snapped a picture of one of the groupers "kissing" my mask - amazing!!! The Blue Hole was a new experience that I was quickly bored with, but around the top of it, wow, what amazing life! Huge loggerhead turtle, nurse shark, puffer fish, eels, rays...
Again, I feel terrible about the previous experiences, but hopefully this review can attest to the fact that they've put together a fantastic crew and are working out the bugs. I won't hesitate to dive on another Dancer/Aggressor boat, and we're currently trying to choose our liveaboard location for 2013 - suggestions anyone???
In my short time diving, this has been by far my favorite experience! I can't wait until we can go on a completely diving focused vacation again - Roatan in November? I think we will, thank you
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Thanks to the review, we were prepared to fend for ourselves at the airport. We had no problem getting a cab, and the driver took us right to the dock - I was skeptical as he kept asking if we were going to the Yoga Retreat! We made it to the boat around 1 pm, approximately 3 hours prior to boarding. Unsure of what to do for the afternoon, lugging our gear, etc, we wandered up to the boat happened to meet Ernie, the engineer. We chatted with him for a few minutes and he was nice enough to help us get our bags on board and send us in the direction of food and refreshment.
We made it back by 4pm and were introduced to the rest of the crew and the guests. We were extremely lucky to have the amazing crew of Captain Dennis, Engineer Ernie, Instructors Dave and Greg, and the extremely talented Chef Shea
Having never been on a liveaboard, my husband and I figured we would either love or hate the experience - we LOVED it! If the travel dates weren't so restricted (Saturday-Saturday) I would insist we dive liveaboards always! Really, the only aspect we were worried about was spending a week trapped on a boat with 10+ people we didn't like. We were truly blessed with our dive-mates! What wonderful personalities, we enjoyed spending time with everyone aboard, and being fairly new divers learned something valuable from each person.I'm happy to report the nitrox was working on this charter. My husband and I weren't nitrox certified prior to this trip and had arranged through the travel specialist to take the course on-board. Dave was our instructor, and it was a pleasure to take the course with him.
We stayed in Cabin 2, which by my calculation (judging by other cabin doors left open) is the smallest of the guest cabins. My husband is 6'1" and well over 200lbs and it was challenging to be in the cabin at the same time! Luckily, other than sleeping there was no need to spend any time in there
I am ashamed to say I was a bit shocked at the bathroom setup... I was expecting small, but not a toilet in the shower Luckily (again!) we did the majority of our showering on the main deck after diving. In fact, we used our shower on our arrival day to wash away the airport grime, and only used it again before leaving. The deck showers were nice and hot with room to spare! I found the cabin shower to be slightly claustrophobic and uncomfortably cool. Our bed was always made after breakfast, with sweets and mini candy bars on the pillow - perfect for our sweet tooth (teeth?)! The AC was cold and very powerful! I understand why they need to keep the temperature so cool, but a little control in the cabin would have been nice. Our vent wasn't even adjustable, so the first night it felt like we were tenting in the early spring in Canada! My nose froze and even my husband complained of being too cool, which he NEVER does. We managed to solve the air flow problem by taking the "do not disturb" door hanger and sliding it behind the vents. TA DA problem solved - adjustable AC. We did have a slight plumbing issue our first 2 days. We own an RV so we understand the need to be careful with what we put in the toilet, but it didn't seem to matter what we did, our toilet kept plugging. On the second day my husband refused to use our toilet (it's pretty embarrassing to have to keep asking to have your toilet unplugged), but even without use it was filling with water. I told this to the engineer, and he and Greg went down for quite sometime and whatever they did with the plumbing they managed to fix the problem - thank you guys!!!The food on this charter was amazing! We had made to order breakfasts before our first dive and included things like waffles, chocolate chip pancakes, corned beef hash (which I've never had before, but really enjoyed!), all types of breakfast meats and eggs. After our morning dive we enjoyed warm, fresh from the oven cookies and muffins, usually served on the deck by Shea (seriously made my morning on several occasions). Lunch was an assortment of goodies - homemade soups and sandwiches, grilled hot dogs and hamburgers on the sun deck, pasta salads, etc. Our afternoon snack varied from chicken satay to homemade dips, hummus, etc. Dinner was always exciting (can you tell I love food?) We had chicken and ribs our first night and my husband was in love! We had grilled steaks, fish, pork tenderloin, and Shea's amazing take on Thanksgiving dinner (Shea, if you're reading this, please message me with the bread pudding recipe!!) The desserts after dinner were always homemade, creative, and delicious! My favorite treat on the charter was the "adult" hot chocolate, which was homemade with milk and a splash of Irish cream - thanks Greg
There was also always a jar of Oreos to snack on any time. One of the instructors, Dave, was training to be Shea's relief chef, and I'm happy to report that he did an awesome job in the kitchen! Honestly, even if the trip had gone badly, I think I might go back for Chef Shea's food... he likens it to his own 14 person restaurant, and he does an amazing job with it - 5 stars all the way!!!As far as the diving experience, we really enjoyed the liveaboard - set up your gear once the entire trip, what a novel idea! The hot showers on the deck were a treat, and the dry towel wrapped around your shoulders really was above and beyond what we expected. We enjoyed diving with all of the crew and the other guests - this was really our first experience being let loose, and what an experience! Our first dive we ended up quite a ways from the boat and ended up being picked up small inflatable boat. After that, we were more careful about our navigation! Our diving experience is limited to the coast of the Mayan Riviera, Cozumel, and Sicily, so I probably can't give a very comprehensive review of the conditions, but I will say that I really enjoyed the 80+ degree water! I definitely didn't think the diving was as good as Cozumel, but we saw some wonderful, new sea life and got to experience the reef sharks. Since the majority of our diving has been drift, it was neat to experience things like no current, and also the tides going in and out. The wreck and the Blue Hole were my 2 favorite dive sites. I was completely in awe with the friendly groupers at the wreck - one of our fellow divers snapped a picture of one of the groupers "kissing" my mask - amazing!!! The Blue Hole was a new experience that I was quickly bored with, but around the top of it, wow, what amazing life! Huge loggerhead turtle, nurse shark, puffer fish, eels, rays...
Again, I feel terrible about the previous experiences, but hopefully this review can attest to the fact that they've put together a fantastic crew and are working out the bugs. I won't hesitate to dive on another Dancer/Aggressor boat, and we're currently trying to choose our liveaboard location for 2013 - suggestions anyone???
In my short time diving, this has been by far my favorite experience! I can't wait until we can go on a completely diving focused vacation again - Roatan in November? I think we will, thank you
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
